NCAA tournament live: Trae Young and Oklahoma in a dogfight, Thursday's schedule and scores

Oklahoma’s Trae Young is off to his usual productive self, but about those fouls? (Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports)

2018 NCAA tournament interactive bracket: Make your picks now

Schedule and results | Top story lines | Tournament history

March Madness began with a bang, with one of the best players in the tournament taking the floor for one of the tournament’s most controversial teams in Pittsburgh. And in the first half of Oklahoma’s first-round game against Rhode Island, point guard Trae Young didn’t disappoint with a game-high 10 points on 4-of-4 shooting. He did, however, pick up two early fouls and had three turnovers as opposed to just two assists.

“Play smart now,” was Sooners Coach Lon Kruger’s advice to Young as he reentered the game following a breather on the bench.

The Sooners led 35-31 at the half. Both teams left a bunch of points at the free throw line as they combined to shoot 6 of 15.

Trae Young tied and then set a Big 12 record for assists by a freshman (passing Texas’ T.J. Ford) with his two first-half assists. Only Doug Gottlieb has more assists in a season period

— Ryan Aber (@ryaber) March 15, 2018

The Rams evened things up at 44 thanks to Jared Terrell, who apparently didn’t know he could dribble in closer:

Also, Rhody’s bench is into it:

Rhode Island then grabbed the lead thanks to two three-pointers in nine seconds:

One of those three-pointers was made by Fatts Russell, who you might have noticed is far from husky. In fact, he weighs just 165 pounds. He got the nickname from his mother, who thought he was a chubby baby, and it stuck.

Sir Charles gets a quick jump: Tip-off was still minutes away when Charles Barkley uttered his first controversial comment of the day.

Blabbing on CBS’s pregame show Thursday, Barkley opined that Arizona’s “DeAndre Ayton is the best college basketball player I’ve seen in 25 years.” Clark Kellogg agreed, but Kenny Smith brought a bit of balance to the conversation, reminding everyone of Anthony Davis.

Remember, the tournament’s first round hadn’t even started. Whee.

Rambling men: As noted by Matthew Giles over at Fancy Stats, Loyola-Chicago is seen as a prime candidate to upset a higher seed, and the 11th-seeded Ramblers will get their chance at approximately 3:10 p.m. Eastern in Dallas against sixth-seeded Miami.

“Each Rambler is an offensive mismatch: [Coach Porter] Moser’s small-ball squad consists of dual ballhandlers in Ben Richardson and Clayton Custer with 6-4 Marques Townes at the wing and 6-6 Donte Ingram as a power forward. (Moser will sometimes go even smaller with Ingram as the Ramblers’ de facto center.),” Giles wrote this week. “It’s a lineup built to shift the defense side to side with crisp ball movement (60 percent assist rate) and perimeter speed, continually probing for a seam until 17 or so seconds remain on the shot clock, at which point the Horizon League champs attack the subsequent opening. Five Ramblers connected on 38 percent or more of their threes, and only seven other Division I squads posted a higher effective field goal percentage (57.8 percent).”

As the first game was tipping off, the Hurricanes were just two-point favorites over Loyola-Chicago.

La Bamba: Mo Bamba, Texas’s 6-foot-11 big man with the nearly eight-foot wingspan, on Thursday again said that his toe is 100 percent healthy ahead of Friday afternoon’s game against seventh-seeded Nevada. Bamba, a freshman, led the Big 12 in rebounding and blocks and is seen as a likely NBA lottery pick in this year’s draft.

Bamba missed three games with a sprained big toe before returning to play 14 minutes in Texas’s Big 12 tournament loss to Texas Tech.

A full-strength Bamba could be a problem for the Wolf Pack, which does not have a player taller than 6-7.

“Unfortunately, when he sustained the injury in mid-February, it slowed him down some, but he’s healthier now than he’s been since he sustained that injury and hopefully on Friday he’ll be able to go full speed and full go,” Longhorns Coach Shaka Smart said this week. “We’re excited about that. When you look at his development, he’s made major strides and now that we’re in mid-March, it’s the time to play the best basketball of his freshman year.”

Schedule and results

Afternoon schedule (All times Eastern):

• 12:15 p.m. No. 7 Rhode Island vs. No. 10 Oklahoma (CBS)
• 12:40 p.m. No. 3 Tennessee vs. No. 14 Wright State (truTV)
• 1:30 p.m. No. 4 Gonzaga vs. No. 13 UNCG (TNT)
• 2 p.m. No. 1 Kansas vs. No. 16 Penn (TBS)
• 2:45 p.m. No. 2 Duke vs. No. 15 Iona (CBS)
• 3:10 p.m. No. 6 Miami vs. No. 11 Loyola Chicago (truTV)
• 4 p.m. No. 5 Ohio State vs. No. 12 South Dakota State (TNT)
• 4:30 p.m. No. 8 Seton Hall vs. No. 9 N.C. State (TBS)

Evening schedule (All times Eastern):

• 6:50 p.m. No. 1 Villanova vs. No. 16 Radford (TNT)
• 7:10 p.m. No. 5 Kentucky vs. No. 12 Davidson (CBS)
• 7:20 p.m. No. 6 Houston vs. No. 11 San Diego State (TBS)
• 7:27 p.m. No. 3 Texas Tech vs. No. 14 Stephen F. Austin (truTV)
• 9:20 p.m. No. 8 Virginia Tech vs. No. 9 Alabama (TNT)
• 9:40 p.m. No. 4 Arizona vs. No. 13 Buffalo (CBS)
• 9:50 p.m. No. 3 Michigan vs. No. 14 Montana (TBS)
• 9:57 p.m. No. 6 Florida vs. No. 11 St. Bonaventure (truTV)

Top story lines

— The most important thing you’ll need to know over the first two days of the tournament — the absolute most essential information is how to find truTV, the Turner channel that assumes a lofty status along with CBS, TNT and TBS for this part of the March Madness. Here’s everything you need to know about how to quickly find it.

— This week’s play-in winners are Radford, Texas Southern, St. Bonaventure and Syracuse. Radford faces Villanova; Texas Southern plays Xavier; St. Bonaventure plays Florida; and Syracuse faces TCU. And as John Feinstein writes, Radford isn’t letting the long odds kill its vibe.

— Kansas just won its NCAA-record 14th straight conference title and is a No. 1 seed for the eighth time in 15 years under Bill Self. (Read more on Big 12 player of the year Devonte’ Graham, who plays a beautiful but understated game.)

— Miami is in its third straight tournament, and the school is already in love with 5-foot-7 Chris Lykes. Next up: All of college basketball.

— Kentucky Coach John Calipari didn’t seem thrilled with his team’s draw —  or with being sent to Boise.

— There will be no team in this year’s field with more scrutiny and attention than Arizona, thanks to the ongoing FBI investigation of college basketball corruption. Some people think the FBI is cleaning up college basketball, but critics claim the bureau is wasting its time. And Jerry Brewer argues that March Madness is the sport’s greatest hypocrisy and best hope of salvation.

— Michigan is again peaking at the right time, with a tenacious defensive identity and another Big Ten tournament title.

— Forget about Kentucky and Arizona, Virginia, still has the easiest road to the Final Four. The Cavaliers face UMBC, which is embracing a “nothing to lose” attitude,” in the first round. And, unsurprisingly, the three best bets to win the NCAA tournament include Virginia, as well as Villanova and Duke. Here is a roundup of other expert picks.

— Barack Obama isn’t letting a little thing like being out of office keep him from his annual “Barack-etology” brackets. Spoiler: he has Michigan State winning the men’s title and UConn (again) winning the women’s championship.

Tournament history

One crying moment

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